Hello and welcome to July’s BritMums Education Roundup. As the summer term (ha ha, what a misnomer) draws to a close, I thought I’d kick off the Roundup with a post from Michelle at Mummy Rates It about non-competitive sports days. I totally agree with her sentiments that taking away the competitive element means missing a valuable chance for children to learn important life lessons on competitiveness, winning, losing and how to deal with it all. Take a read and let us know what you think.
With exam taking over for another year and the current GCSE vs O Levels debate opening up like a festering wound, I thought it well worth sharing Victoria at Glosswatch’s powerful post about GCSEs and how undervaluing them in turn leads to undervaluing the young people who have taken or are taking these qualifications.
Jenny from Cheetahs In My Shoes shares her experience of how overwhelming parents’ evenings can be. Both in the emotional sense and the physical sense of having to squeeze an adult sized butt onto a teeny tiny primary school chair and still maintain full concentration during your allotted ten minutes.
And with the school holidays now in sight, here are a couple of useful posts. Firstly, one from Claire via her wonderfully named Life, Ninja Cat Killer and Everything Else blog. Given the summer we are having, I think Claire’s Rainy Day Fun with Clean Mud is a must-share post. As well as being good clean fun, this learning activity is great for developing sensory skills, fine motor skills and dexterity for handwriting.
The National Literacy Trust recently revealed that boys are falling behind with reading. Emma at The House With No Name points out that far from this just being an issue for schools, it is down to us parents to inspire our children to read – though she does admit a certain level of defeat maintaining her teenage son’s interest in reading and would welcome any suggestions – anyone out there got some top tips?
Cookie Jar Life has been musing on whether the powers that be should stop fiddling with the Early Years qualifications and instead focus on giving proper training and support if and where it is needed for current Early Years workers.
Jane at Practically Perfect Mums applauds a forward-thinking teacher whose class blogging project is proving to be an incredibly useful tool for Jane’s son’s academic development, by helping him overcome a very literal writer’s block.
Given I live in Hackney, one of the Olympic host boroughs, my eyes lit up when I saw Merry’s Olympic themed Hama bead designs post, what a great idea for using the Olympics as a Home Education theme. Merry has also started a Linky on her Muddle Puddle Home Education blog for Olympic craft ideas. So, get creative and get linking!
As a parent just starting out on the educational road for my child, it is so useful to read the wisdom and experiences of people who’ve come out the other side. Ross Mountney has written a really thought-provoking post about working outside ‘normal’ and the flexible scheduling benefits that home educating your children brings.
So there you have it. If you feel inspired to write an education related post after reading through this selection, please do drop me a line at motherwifeme at gmail.com or nudge me on twitter: @motherwifeme and do please add your posts to the Linky below so everyone can read them
About Luci Hindmarsh
Luci McQuitty Hindmarsh is a mother, wife and writer- in that order. Honest. She is based in London and started her career in journalism before accidentally languishing in PR for too many years – it was the lashings of champagne wot done it. Motherhood allowed her to change track and get back to what she loves – writing. Luci has two blogs. Her personal blog, www.motherwifeme.com is about all things parenting, marriage and anything else that piques her interest. Her other blog, Ma Puce, is part her Ma Puce website, an online resource to help parents teach their babies, toddlers and young children French as a second language. www.mapucebilingual.co.uk Luci can regularly be found loitering with intent on Twitter as @motherwifeme and @mapucebilingual and also ventures onto Facebook.
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MotherWifeMe
Wednesday 18th of July 2012
Lovely post from Actually Mummy linked above. Yes, it is all about how these life lessons are served up. Not that the rest of their lives will always come with such cushioning when they aren't winning. But a gentle introduction must surely help build up good self-esteem and that in itself is a cushion to the blows that life can dole out to all of us.
Actually Mummy...
Tuesday 17th of July 2012
Oh the debate over competitive sports day rages! I linked up mine from last year, which I wrote after seeing at least 60% of the kids in floods of tears at the end. This year the school did better, by mixing the entire school into 4 colour groups and declaring the red team the winners of a cup with their group engraved on it for next year. Brilliant! Hardly any tears. Until they started doling out special wristbands for best teamwork, most perseverance and strong self-belief. Guess which kids burst into tears that their efforts hadn't been recognised? It makes me raging mad!! Sorry ;)